Countering ashes and dust

[RustAndTheCity]

Hello outcast fans! I have a question for people who have played with and against ashes and dust. What is the best way to counter ashes and dust? As a player with this expensive model what do you fear against it? How have players effectively stopped ashes and dust from running rampant.

I'm very curious. I've only faced it once but it is immune to many things you might commonly use against a beater. You can't slow or paralyze it. It's swift, so it can happily much through cheap models quickly. It's an incredible schemer and anti scheme runner with its speed, resilience and attack. It can beat out other beaters as it's hard to stop it from reforming.

 

So, how does one counter ashes and dust? I'm curious for general ideas (hence not I play _______ master what do I do...).

 

Thanks!

[CapnBloodbeard]

 

 

Aside from that, have you checked out the pullmyfinger wiki?

[Freman]

It has 9 wounds and Df 6. Once it goes down, if you can ignore the armour, the Core only has 6 wounds.

It's a good model, but it ought to be when you're paying 13 stones for it.

[Nukemouse]

Not every list runs anti-armor and if you are forced to deploy first your anti-armor options may not be on the correct side of the board to deal with A&D.

[Freman]

Okay, then I have nothing. 

Maybe putting models in between Core and Cloud so they can't reform. Cloud can't charge and Core can't move so that'll stop or slow their recombination.

[Bathysphere]

Things that ignore Armor or Hard to wound are really the only way to consistently remove A&D from the board for good. Dust Storm only has 4 wounds and no armor, but a good player won't let him sit on the board once A&D splits. Packing things that bypass armor is generally good when playing into outcasts, since we have a number of "value" models that pack it (Freikorps, primarily). 

Your other option is to hit the core 6 times. It can't stone and it's Def 1, so you can throw AP at it until it crumples. You'll have to consider it it's worth doing, since it would likely be 3 models pouring their whole activation into the task, but depending on the board state it could be the right choice.

Your third option is playing around not killing it. A&D can't bypass armor or HtK, nor can it easily push out of engagement. Throwing 2 minions with either ability in its face can lock it up for a couple turns, which is often enough. And if your opponent doesn't take A&D those resilient minions probably won't go to waste. 

[Adran]

If you want to take out Ashes and dust you need to plan. 

You have to Kill ashes and dust, and then either kill the core or the storm. If you have anti armour, or a high volume of attacks then the core is not that hard to kill. 

If you want to Kill dust storm then you have a couple of options. Control where you kill ashes and dust. If you can kill it far enough away from the bord edge to stop it reforming in 1 turn then you have the time to hunt dust down. This normally requires bad play from the ahses player, but pushes on your attack, or even being sneaky and putting your crew on the near part of the flank can be enough to make the storm deploy just too far away to make it (or is forced to make disengaging walks. This often can catch someone out, you put a large ml ranged model so it covers the area about 7" away from the ashen core and the board edge where they will drop the storm, and all of a sudden they can't end the first walk in a spot to be able to freely make the second. 

 

 

[Ludvig]

44 minutes ago, Nukemouse said:

Not every list runs anti-armor and if you are forced to deploy first your anti-armor options may not be on the correct side of the board to deal with A&D.

Every list should probably run some anti armor to be honest, there are a lot of lists that stop you right in your tracks if you can't handle armor. If your anti armor sets up somewhat central it should be able to threaten A&D on either side. Use pushes if you need to. It's a 13ss model so it shouldn't go down to any casual thing facing it.

When I face it I usually tie it up with a model that forces negatives on the opponent. Cassandra, Yin, guild lawyers or Francisco to mention a few. A&D will probably come out ahead and kill that model but you payed 6-9 ss and A&D is expensive.

[apes-ma]

37 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Every list should probably run some anti armor to be honest.

As an aside, are Ronin the only non-master anti-armour options in Outcasts that don't rely on a suit for a trigger?

As for A&D, on top of all the previous information about a good way to kill it, I find that when I feel like A&D got gimped is when it fails to be the jack of all trades schemer/beater that I want it to be, and it gets cornered into one role or the other. For example, my opponent figures out I want to use A&D to do claim jump and make a whole flank unappealing to scheme runners, so he ties A&D up, or forces me to use another model to help do the claim jump by blocking one of A&Ds markers. Or alternatively they think I am scheming with other models and want to use A&D to do primarily do killing - they can lock down those other schemers which forces A&D to do some schemeing instead of killing, and the killing power I was relying on has been reduced by having to go and run schemes to keep up in points.

[Myyrä]

1 hour ago, apes-ma said:

As an aside, are Ronin the only non-master anti-armour options in Outcasts that don't rely on a suit for a trigger?

They probably are, but there are some ways to get past the H2W, like Rusty Alice and Relic Hammers.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, apes-ma said:

As an aside, are Ronin the only non-master anti-armour options in Outcasts that don't rely on a suit for a trigger?

 

Well Bishop has it on a trigger, but he can have that suit built in, so he can always ignore armour if you want. 

[apes-ma]

4 minutes ago, Adran said:

Well Bishop has it on a trigger, but he can have that suit built in, so he can always ignore armour if you want. 

Haha oh yeah, that guy! He has the secret power of dying x4 faster than you expect him to as well!

[DXXXVIII]

throw nekima or langston at it or sth just as op as A&D

[Azrrael]

So I think the number one issue players don't see is to kill AnD at range or with a singular model before he goes. The biggest ability of ashes is to voluntarily split with Hamelin or Levi over the other masters. Be aware of the way the storm can come in and screw with your plan on the flanks and be aware this can easily happen any turn he's on the table. Although he is a big beater he is just 3/4/6 with no real triggers unless he spikes the abombs. Keep something like armor or some type of reduction to faceoff with him. Inside Hamelin and Levi be aware of the core pulsing for high value turns if you clump up too much. Honestly the biggest mistake I see is people go to hard or to soft at killing him and lose compensation elsewhere for the efforts. Play the movement game and just be aware of the range of threat and he becomes any other beater. 

[Seadhna]

On 08/05/2017 at 1:45 PM, apes-ma said:

As an aside, are Ronin the only non-master anti-armour options in Outcasts that don't rely on a suit for a trigger?

As for A&D, on top of all the previous information about a good way to kill it, I find that when I feel like A&D got gimped is when it fails to be the jack of all trades schemer/beater that I want it to be, and it gets cornered into one role or the other. For example, my opponent figures out I want to use A&D to do claim jump and make a whole flank unappealing to scheme runners, so he ties A&D up, or forces me to use another model to help do the claim jump by blocking one of A&Ds markers. Or alternatively they think I am scheming with other models and want to use A&D to do primarily do killing - they can lock down those other schemers which forces A&D to do some schemeing instead of killing, and the killing power I was relying on has been reduced by having to go and run schemes to keep up in points.

Aionus is the prime anti-armor tech against things like Joss and Langston.

 

If your A&D gets engaged and can't Interact, throw a Pretty Floral Bonnet on him. The mere idea is so hilarious your opponent will be honor-bound to immediately concede.

[apes-ma]

49 minutes ago, Seadhna said:

Aionus is the prime anti-armor tech against things like Joss and Langston.

 

If your A&D gets engaged and can't Interact, throw a Pretty Floral Bonnet on him. The mere idea is so hilarious your opponent will be honor-bound to immediately concede.

Oh yes! I forgot about Aionus - I quite like that guy. And whilst I love the idea of the floral bonnet on a sentient dust storm with metal claws, I can never seem to squeeze them both into the same list and feel good about my number of activations...

[Seadhna]

We do indeed struggle for points due to the amount of great 10+ss models in our faction. Then the Malifaux Child comes to the rescue!

[DXXXVIII]

A&D + Donkey Rider became  somewhat of a staple to me.
Donkey rider alone is great schemer. Now add A&D with scramble and dont  mind me... well thats just another level.

[apes-ma]

10 minutes ago, DXXXVIII said:

A&D + Donkey Rider became  somewhat of a staple to me.
Donkey rider alone is great schemer. Now add A&D with scramble and dont  mind me... well thats just another level.

That's half your stones (with Scramble thrown in) for only three activations - what do you fill the rest out with? Do you stick to 7 activations? And with which masters?

[Ludvig]

On 2017-05-09 at 6:02 PM, apes-ma said:

That's half your stones (with Scramble thrown in) for only three activations - what do you fill the rest out with? Do you stick to 7 activations? And with which masters?

Hamelin for 14 activations for 8 stones or whatever it is?

Lrvi for free waifs and killing A&D yoursel to get several extra activations?

[apes-ma]

4 hours ago, Ludvig said:

Hamelin for 14 activations for 8 stones or whatever it is?

Lrvi for free waifs and killing A&D yoursel to get several extra activations?

Haha yeah good points! I mostly play Jack, Parker and VS, so I probably wasn't thinking about it the right way...